The CTT Podcast was on this morning and it started before my waking hour so I was an hour late. Even so, it was great to have given it time because I learned yet another thing and for the first time, received some micro amounts of BTC by interacting on the threadcast. I am aware that we already have the v4v.app by BrianofLondon, I haven't tried using it, and here comes VSC allowing Bitcoin wrapping on Hive!
The podcast aimed to test the feature where Starkerz and others sent BTC to various users who were able to register to the VSC wrapping platform. Uyobong sent me my first 5 cents worth BTC, Starkerz and Vaultec added some more then Luis96xd gifted me with some too! Thank you guys! You rock!
It was quite exciting to experience that myself - receiving and then sending some to others as well.
How to Register
✅ Go to https://wrap.vsc.eco/ and click on the Keychain logo.
✅ Approve the request on your Keychain. There are two pop-ups and you must confirm both.
Per my experience, there was no notification showing that my registration was successful. Others had something like this:
MummyGo
Other users reported not being able to register (most of them were using mobile phones so it might be an issue). Vaultec mentioned that they are working on something that doesn't require users to register before being able to process transactions because it will be connected to our Hive accounts already.
If you are reading this and just registered, feel free to leave a comment under this post so I can transfer some 5 cents worth of BTC to you so we can all experience it hehe.
Transferring BTC to another Hive account
After seeing the incoming transfers from Uyobong and Starkerz, I was in a waiting mode thinking that I would receive a notification saying BTC had fully confirmed when they had been processed in just about 15 seconds which is very impressive.
But here's how to transfer BTC to another user who is registered to the wrapping portal.
➡️ Go to Actions and select "Transfer" from the dropdown menu.
➡️ A small pop-up opens where you can input the account you are transferring to and the amount of BTC. For now, it is not yet possible to transfer BTC to an account that is not registered on the portal. You will know if the account exists because it says "Account found!" like in the second image below.
| User not registered | User registered |
|---|---|
 |  |
Upon sending, the transaction shows up on the transaction page as "Pending" for a very short while then it confirms seconds after which is insane! It takes a lot longer time when transacting on Bitcoin's mainnet.
Summary and Personal Thoughts
It was very cool to experience this new service, being able to receive and send Bitcoin fast and feeless. I'm yet to test wrapping BTC myself on the VSC network but will try to do so at some point.
It is great that VSC is bringing this tool or bridge to Hive. Accordingly, they are building a Bitcoin wrapping technology which is a fully decentralized, collateralized, and proven wrapping system that is used to bring Bitcoin from Layer 1 over to Hive and VSC smart contracts.
This brings Bitcoin into Hive so people can have cross-exchange trading and provide a liquidity source for Hive through their decentralized exchange where anyone can directly trade HIVE or HBD to wrapped Bitcoin, unwrap it, and send it to their Bitcoin mainnet wallets. According to Vaultec, they might be the most secure wrapping tech there is.
I'm not technical but it's very interesting to see what other opportunities this will bring to the blockchain. Perhaps one day, we will be able to tip others with BTC here on Hive, yeah?
Lead image edited on Canva. Photos and screenshots from VSC wrapping portal. No copyright infringement intended. 03122023/12:12ph